I took an unplanned hiatus last week for so many reasons.  Opa arrived last Monday for his annual visit.  We have been having lots and lots of fun. Swimming, fishing, going to the SuperEx, hanging out on Parliament Hill, going to Museums, birthday dinners and walks in parks.  Packing it all into ten days.  He leaves tomorrow morning, we are sad to see him go and only wish that he would make Ottawa his home again or at the very least a semi-annual home.

I also had a crazy pumpkin hat order.  My biggest one yet.  I had an order for twelve hats and they were to be delivered in two weeks.  It was a challenge so I knit my way through the last two weeks, every spare moment I had including driving in the car to all these awesome places.  As much as I enjoy knitting, it was a bit much. So I may not do another order quite that big, but we will see I am always up for a challenge.

 I have also been busy photographing fabulous families.  I do love my job and am happy that I am getting busier and able to share with others.

Although I am not looking forward to J returning to school it will mean that we will have a return to some normalcy around here. Our summer has been chalk full of visiting and mini-vacations with those visitors.  We need to get back to eating right, proper bedtimes and organization.  My house feels like it is a mess and everything is upside down.  What I would really love is a two week extension on summer vacation just to hang out with my kids and do nothing.  What are my chances?

What do you say when someone you have only met in real life once, drives with her family for four hours after a long day of partying while pregnant to visit you while you are on vacation?  You say thank you Bethany Actually!  We couldn’t have asked for a better way to start off our vacation than to welcome Bethany and her family to our quaint little cottage to spend the day with us at our beach.

We had just enough time to unpack, grab some groceries and have our favourite pizza for dinner before The Actually’s arrived.  We all got a good night sleep and woke up refreshed for a day of sharing and fun on the beach.  The sun was strong, the temperatures were HOT (35C/104F) with high humidity and it was a glorious day.  Bethany and I even managed a little pottery painting while the kids and husbands napped.  The Actually’s packed it in after dinner for their long drive home.  We were so blessed to spend our first day with them, we hope that they enjoyed our beach as much as we do and hopefully we can do this again sometime soon.

To view more of our beach vacation head on over to my flickr page.

When I was contacted by Mom Central to participate in the Lay’s Chip Trips blog tour, I was more than happy to jump in on the action.  Lay’s has been a family favorite for both Hubby and I since we were kids.  As much as we would love to say that we only eat vegetables for a snack,  the truth is we don’t.  We love chips.  Chips are a weekend treat in our house and a BBQ just isn’t a BBQ without a bag of Lay’s as a side dish to your burger.  Hubby even puts in his special ‘Salt and Vinegar with homemade dip’ order when we head over to his Mom’s and she always has it ready for him.

Lay’s Chip Trips is program where you can earn points from your bags of chips and use them towards discounts for food, lodging, car rentals, museums and many other tourist attractions all across Canada. Whether you are staying home for the summer or you are planning a weekend away in Toronto or a week away in Nova Scotia you can use your Lay’s Chip Trips to save money.

How does Lay’s Chip Trips work?

•  Simply pick up a specially marked bag of Lay’s Chips. Each bag is worth between 3‐15 points depending on the bag size. The most popular bag size is worth 10 points.
• Of note, the two new flavours, BBQ RIB and CHEDDAR AND SOUR CREAM are worth double points!
• Visit Lays.ca to create an account and then enter the unique code that you’ll find on the back of the bag. You can enter as many codes as you want and start to bank your points.
• Use your points to claim great discounts on fun things to do with your family and friends all summer long.

As a reader of my blog you can use this unique code BEACH-MAMA1 when you register on the site before May 31st, 2010 - be sure to enter the code and bank the points when you sign up so you can start adding up points right away.  10 points will allow you to start getting discounts immediately.
I look forward to sharing our adventures this summer using our Lay’s Chip Trips.  I have already cashed in a few points to get us started.

Disclosure I am participating in the Lay’s Chip Trips program by Mom Central on behalf of Frito Lay. I received Lay’s Chip Trip points and a gift card to offset my trip costs to facilitate this post. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Today is the last day to enter for my Blogiversary Giveaway, the draw will take place tomorrow morning!

Today, I am going out on a limb.  I am not one to usually use my blog to further businesses that I have, but I really, really want to go to California this September.  You see Hubby has a conference in Anaheim.  Three years ago it was in San Diego and J and I tagged along.  We had a fabulous trip, met up with some fantastic online friends and would love to do it all again and maybe sneak in a trip to Disney while we are at it.

Staying at home with the kids means that I usually don’t get to join him on fun work trips, but this one means a lot to me and I would like to be able to pay for myself, J and Apple to go.  Of course, it so happens that the trip is two weeks after Apple’s second birthday, so we would have to pay for her as well.  I am not asking for donations but, I am going to offer a 25% discount on any of my Photography packages  until the end of the Summer (August 31, 2009), just click on the “California or Bust” photo in my sidebar and it will take you directly through to my photography site.  You can use the contact page to book a session with me, just be sure to mention that you are one of my blog readers when you contact me in order to get the discount.

If you are not up for getting portraits taken I do have my Etsy shop stocked and will be adding new items in the next few weeks.  Or if neither of those suits you and your kids will be heading back to school in the Fall, I am an Agent for Stuck on You Labels (I have a button for that on my sidebar as well).

I will take any help that I can to make it to California, there are a couple of Ladies, I would like to meet and I  have been hoping to go for sometime, but just got word that Hubby will definitely be going with his new job.

Last year before school even got out, J was bored.  So we made this jar full of wonderful things to do.  If he got bored we were to stick our hands in and pull something out.  And whatever we pulled out we had to do.  I got the idea from Kiwi Kate when she was homeschooling, she had a jar for Mystery Monday (I think it was called).

Well, we never had to use it.  J did not get bored once.  I put the jar away and kept it for this Summer, just in case.  I took it down and dusted it off today, so we could have it ready and available at the first sign of boredom.  The jar is full of fun things, like a visit to a local beach, picnics at the park, visiting museums and playdates with friends we don’t get to see all school year long.   Hopefully, we won’t need to use it, but I know either way we will be doing some of the fun stuff from the jar anyway.  It just helps if we can’t think of what to do.

I didn’t realize that I hadn’t posted since last Wednesday, shame on me.  I don’t know where all of my time is going these days, but I think it is in my backyard somewhere.

Apple is officially and outside girl.  I  truly cannot keep her inside without a fight. After dropping J at school she wants to ride her bike on the driveway, which we do, and I should take photos of, for at least a half an hour if it isn’t raining.  Then we come in and do whatever tidying we need to do with her chanting “ouside, ouside, ouside” the whole time. Then it is into the backyard we go.

She definitely prefers the swings, but she also loves the sandbox.  And after it had been left open in the rain last week, she found it newly interesting to play with wet sand. This was taken Friday morning, she stayed in that position for a good twenty minutes fingering the wet sand, wondering why it wasn’t sliding through her fingers anymore.

 Then came Saturday morning, when Apple woke up with a fever.  I should say she went to bed with one Friday night and it was still there all day Saturday.  So our plans for going out and doing stuff while Hubby was working a rare Saturday were squashed and we had to find stuff to do around the house and outside that we don’t do every single day.

We got through it but, to keep J happy I sent him into the pool while Apple had her nap.  It is hard to believe that not three summers ago he was terrified to even go near the pool and I had to throw him in the water just to cool off on a hot day.  Now, I can sit on the sidelines in my “Lifeguard Chair” and supervise while he is in there swimming away.

 In this photo of J, I can truly see my Dad in him.  It is not often that I can see other family members in my children because I see them for themselves but, when I see photos and see that I captured an expression that is when I see others.  And this one right here is my Dad, from his hair to his chin to the way he is standing.  J had a great time in the pool and went in again on Sunday and today.  I, however, have not made it in.  Since it isn’t mandatory anymore, I can wait for the water to warm up for another week before I jump in.

Thank goodness we have a good sized backyard and that I love being outside as much as my kids do.  I will say that without working on my tan I am starting to turn a nice shade of brown.

Today was just fabulous, weather wise.  We had one other day that I could have put the sprinkler out, but for some other reason I didn’t.  Today was the day.  J has been asking me for about two weeks if he could go through the sprinkler and I keep telling him it was too cold.  When he asked yesterday, I told him that no matter what he could go in it today.

We weren’t home from school for five minutes and he started asking.  I made him wait until his Sister had gone for a nap and that was it, he was running and jumping and cooling off.  After Apple’s nap, I put both of them back in their swim suits and turned on the water.

I just love sprinkler and summer fun.

Here’s to many more days of this for the rest of the summer.

I know it is only April, and the last time I remember it being this hot in April was back in 1999.  Why do I remember because I got engaged on May 1st and I had been driving with my roof down for a couple of weeks already.

Saturday was the first really hot day and also the Pancake Breakfast at our local fire station.  J really wanted to go so we donated a hefty sum of money for some pancakes (which J and Apple LOVED), waited in line to sit in the firetrucks and chatted with some of Ottawa’s Finest.  It was great.

J was really in his element.

Apple was a little bored.

But, today~ WOW! What can I say about today?  It felt like the middle of July, minus the bugs.  J went in and out, he doesn’t like to get too hot unless the pool is set up.  I used him for a photo assignment, jumping all around the backyard.

Then Apple woke up from her nap and wanted to go outside with her brother.  They chose the swings.

Just look at J’s face.  He was gearing up to push her very, very high!

And she loved every minute of it.

I am looking forward to so many more days of swinging in the backyard, together with my kids.  And many more HOT days this Summer.

Today was the most perfect way to say good-bye to summer for another year.  What started out as a cool Fall morning, turned sunny and warm by noon.  And after lunch and naps (yes, naps, not just Apple) we set out to Mountain Orchards.  We normally go to Jockvale Orchard close to home and pick a basket of apples, but we decided to go further out this year.  And when the flyer for Mountain Orchards landed in our mail box two weeks ago, we were set.

The flyer boasted wagon rides, hay bales to jump in, a corn maze and plenty of place to picnic.  I do not think that they were prepared for the power of the flyer.  We had set our minds to go somewhere else, East of the city, but changed our minds quickly at the proximity of Mountain.

We even had to take two cars because Big Brother A came with us. Sorry we don’t have a mini van folks, but it was well worth the extra gas and inconvenience of two cars to see the joy on J’s face having his Big Brother with him.  Opa was thrilled as well.  This has to be our first outing, other than a restaurant, in over a year.

We were all hot, all except for Hubby who wore shorts, and happy to pluck apples from the trees.  We got lost in the corn maze and J found the way out.  Apple was happy as a, well an apple until the very end, but I am sure she was hot with her fleece on.  We didn’t want to take her out of the carrier to take her fleece off for fear of not getting her back in.

All in all the most perfect way to spend the last day of summer.  And because the line up for fresh apple pies was so long, we stopped at Farm Boy to pick up one of theirs to celebrate the day.  I will be sure to make a crisp with the ones we got today, but I need to find a store with brown sugar, everybody is sold out. What is with the shortage of brown sugar?

I hope you all found a fabulous way to enjoy this last day of summer and if you get a chance and you live in the Ottawa area, be sure to stop by Mountain Orchard with the family, you won’t be disappointed.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the temperatures were hot, I would be thinking we were living on the West coast.  Now, I am not one to complain about any summer weather, but can I at least say enough of the rain already!?  Where rainy days were previously reserved for indoor play we are now starting to adapt to living with rain and going out in it.  We now have the ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ mentality.

Sunday saw us take a trip over the river to a friends house.  Hubby just loves going to her place because it is surrounded by woods and farming fields and all you hear is nature and kids playing.  If I agreed to it he would pack us up in an instant.  Some days I wonder why we live in suburbia, but others I understand completely.  It is all about convenience, mostly mine.  For fun we decided to take the ferry.  J was so excited but, sadly I think he was a bit disappointed.  The ferry ride was all of five maybe ten minutes.  It seemed so much longer 15 years ago when I took it all the time to visit a girlfriend of mine.  But it was a boat ride none the less.

 The boys had a blast playing in the sprinkler, blowing bubbles, going on a nature walk through the woods, playing in the tree fort.  While us ladies hung out in the kitchen or on the porch.  Oh the porch is to die for.  I didn’t take any photos of the house, silly me.  Most of it is covered (where hubby sat in the rain and listened to the rain pelt the tin roof).  But, part of it is not and it is a great place to sit in the sun and get the shade for supper time.  When they built their house (and I mean THEY built their house, no builders here) they really planned well for the orientation. And her kitchen!  To die for.  Nice and big and a very welcome room.  They thought about how everyone hangs out in the kitchen and planned to make sure it was comfortable enough to do just that.

And then, there is her garden… ahh… how could you not have a fabulous day when this is greeting you outside your door?  Behind it is her kitchen garden and with all the rain this year the flowers and the veggies are all growing well.  As we were leaving they made sure to tell us to come back any time… well, Hubby may be packing his bags and heading up there every weekend for the rest of the summer.  He was one happy man after spending the day at the Creek.